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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515559">Anywhere, America</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/QWERTYouAndMe/pseuds/QWERTYouAndMe'>QWERTYouAndMe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 1975 (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:20:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515559</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/QWERTYouAndMe/pseuds/QWERTYouAndMe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>George is sitting just across from him in a shitty little diner in Anywhere, America.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>George Daniel/Matthew Healy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Anywhere, America</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinelikemillions91/gifts">shinelikemillions91</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for laura, my angel x</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>George is sitting just across from him in a shitty little diner in Anywhere, America. Long, long ago, many nights and days and intersections back, Matty had lost track of where they were, or where they were going. The roads are simply limitless, liminal space; it doesn’t matter where they are, because they are together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matty doesn’t think there’s ever been better times. Everything, here and now, is perfect. He doesn’t know where they are, or where they’re going, or where they’ve been, but he knows that their tour bus is parked outside, and little pockets of their group are dispersed throughout this diner. After so long all being so close, they need some time to spread out, to just not be in each other’s faces. Not Matty and George, though. No, because it’s them, and they have to be close. They’re always close. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>George pours too much creamer in his coffee, mumbles under his breath — </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh, shit </span>
  </em>
  <span>— and Matty winces, too, because he knows exactly how George takes his coffee, and it swirls now in a plume of too-light brown. He looks down at his own cup, offers to swap, even though he hates his coffee that light, his is still black, and George could make it how he likes it. He’s about to open his mouth and say the words — </span>
  <em>
    <span>do you want mine? </span>
  </em>
  <span>— but he pauses, stops himself, looks across the table and truly takes George in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just past two o’clock in the morning, and George looks heavenly even under the too-bright, blue-white lights, with the bags under his eyes and his hair in a mess. Matty wants to reach across the table and smooth it down, card his fingers through it, scratch his nails against George’s scalp in that way he knows George likes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows what George likes. He doesn’t care where they are, where they’re going, because he’s always got George. In the days, there is George. In the nights, or most of the nights, there is George, and they squeeze into one tiny bunk beside each other, tangle themselves up in one another and fall asleep, and Matty will press his cold feet into George’s warm legs and George will laugh, pretend to pull away, but let him keep them there, take both of his chilly little hands between his own and warm those, too, kiss the cold tip of his nose. George likes kissing. He’ll kiss everywhere, if Matty lets him. Matty likes being kissed by George. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>George pours too much creamer in his coffee, and says under his breath, </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh, shit</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Matty looks down at his own cup and offers to switch, but the words don’t get to the front of his mouth before he’s distracted by George, by the sight of him across the table, under the too-bright diner fluorescents, with his messy hair and tired eyes, and Matty thinks that he looks so beautiful. He wishes he were the picture taking type, or that he had an excuse to take a picture, but he can’t think of one, and maybe it’s better to just remember this, anyway. Maybe this is just an image he should keep in his mind, think back on it often so it never, ever fades; George, with him, in this diner in Anywhere, America, with his too-light coffee and the too-bright lights, and his tired eyes and messy hair and Matty loves him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question he was going to ask is replaced, in his mouth, with the words. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you. I love you, George</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’s said them enough times, rambled them over and over, through tears, through moans, through yawns and sleepy sighs — he must have said </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you</span>
  </em>
  <span> to George a million times in their lives, and he doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. He says it every day, more than once, more than a handful of times, and every single time he says it, every single time he’s said it for the last ten years, maybe more — he’s stopped keeping track — he’s meant it, one hundred percent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loves George. He loves him in ways he doesn’t even understand, doesn’t think he’ll ever understand, as long as they both shall live. He thinks he’s okay with it, though, because he doesn’t need to understand. Loving George comes as easily as breathing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s about to say it, about to reach across the table and put his hand over George’s and murmur the words, but then George looks up and catches him staring, and he smiles a sort of bashful smile, shakes his head fondly, and looks at his lap, and Matty’s chest blooms with warmth like there’s a whole fucking rosebush inside him, and he’s truly never felt so sure, he loves George. He loves George. He loves George.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment, he thinks, has passed, but he doesn’t care. Just because he doesn’t say it, doesn’t mean he can’t show it, so he taps his fingers on the table in the rhythm of a song they’re working on, and George’s lip curls upwards in a smirk and joins in with him, and they smile at each other as they tap away at the wooden veneer. They get looks, but they don’t care, because how could they? All that matters in the world, it seems, is the two of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Matty loses his concentration and gets thrown off. He laughs as George carries on without him, takes the napkin from his side of the table and balls it up, throws it at him, and George laughs, and Matty loves that fucking laugh. He loves George. He reaches over the table and lifts up George’s untouched coffee cup, pushes his own towards him, pointedly drinks out of the one that used to be George’s. It’s too light for either of their tastes, but Matty doesn’t mind. He’ll drink it because it means that George gets to make it right this time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>George looks at him over the top of the table, and he’s still smiling, but it’s a different smile. It’s an I love you smile. Matty feels like those roses are blooming behind his eyes, and he looks away before George can see them suddenly shining.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loves George. He loves George. He loves this horrible coffee because it means he loves George. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>George adds enough creamer this time. Matty watches his hands, avoids his eyes. It’s late, he reasons. They’re tired. He’s just emotional. George’s foot finds his own under the table, and Matty does look up then, holds his eye for a moment. George’s eyes are glinting as he takes a sip of his properly-prepared coffee, and Matty gives him a wide, warm smile — it seems that all they have done since they got here is smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Matty wants to say it again.</span>
  <em>
    <span> I love you. I love you, George.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He’s had the moment taken from him so many times, and he just wants to say it, just wants to get it out into the air, but then the waitress comes by with their food, and they both stop to turn to her, smile at her politely, say thank you, and again, the moment is gone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then, Matty watches George pick up his toast and check both sides, and he’s reminded of a day many many years ago, when they had first moved in together, and he’d woken up in the morning to find George examining his toast in a similar way. And he knows, he’s always remembered, since then, that George butters the darkest side of his toast, always, every single time. Matty thinks back on every time he’s seen George do this, peer at his breakfast before he starts to eat it, and he imagines all the times he will see George do it in the future. He pictures them both as old, grey men, still by one another’s sides, when the lights have all faded from their memories, and the very final echoes of the echoes of the closing chords of their last song have faded out. He sees himself, grey, and George, with only wisps of white hair, sitting, just like this, across a table from each other, and George, examining his breakfast, and Matty, still feeling the exact same way he does now. And he thinks that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay that the moment has eluded him tonight, because he’s got so much time to make up for it. He has the rest of their lives to make up for this one night, seizing every opportunity to say it: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you, I love you, I love you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/ply-mrs">my tumblr</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/lesbiandomesticity/159500355683">inspired by this post (not mine)</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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